Lights go down on the Ridge’s last picture show

Thursday, February 7, 2013

By Curtis Emde, Special to The Sun

The facade sign at the Ridge Theatre.

The 63-year old Ridge Theatre in Kitsilano screened its last film ever on Sunday, Feb. 3. Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris ended a final film festival that also included the Sound of Music, My American Cousin (with director Sandy Wilson and star Margaret Langrick in attendance) and a midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show, among others.

Speaking to The Sun before the final screening, manager Steve Ferguson noted that he would be the last person to leave the building on Sunday night, locking the doors behind him for the last time. He recalled another occasion on which he’d sat in another permanently closed theatre, Famous Players’ Richmond Centre, its facade intact but the interior having already been gutted and transformed into a food court. “That was sad, but this is the Ridge,” he said. “This place has a much longer history.”

Some of that history will survive the demolition of the Ridge complex itself: many of the theatre’s unique features will live on in various locations around the province.

The vintage Victoria X projector on display in the lobby, a reliable machine that had faithfully screened films at the Park Theatre on Cambie for years, is being donated to to the Odeon in Victoria. Projectionist Chris Unwin pointed out the solid craftsmanship of the machine. “If you plugged it in right now, it would be perfectly capable with no more than a little oil to run film once again,” he said.

The 35-mm projector used to screen all of the final film festival movies will find a new home at the Vancity Theatre on Seymour street, while Cinematronix, a company that services theatres across the province, will take the Ridge’s audio equipment.

On Sunday evening, dozens of customers took self-portraits in front of the unique early modern doors, which are destined for the Rio Theatre on East Broadway. Others climbed the wide curved staircase leading toward the projection booth to take photos of the huge stained glass mural depicting a projector in full flight, installed when Leonard Schein took over ownership of the Ridge in 1978. The massive window will take up residence in a new Cineplex multiplex on Marine Drive, where it will be backlit and displayed with the reverence it deserves.

The Planetarium is set to inherit the popcorn machine and the ticket booth. The seats, Schein explained, will likely end up in other theatres in the city and on Vancouver Island, and some will go to investors.

And the hardwood floor under the moviegoers’ feet in the auditorium itself? “That could end up in people’s living rooms and kitchens,” Schein smiled.

Despite the second life being offered to many of the Ridge’s artifacts, on Sunday night it was impossible to escape the bittersweet truth that the place itself, one of Vancouver’s last great neighbourhood movie theatres and community gathering places (and also one of the last cinemas to project 35-mm film), was on borrowed time. Many customers expressed helpless anger over what the Georgia Straight referred to last week as the city’s shrinking “cultural terrain” in favour of more condo developments, but that atmosphere was tempered by a palpable wistfulness.

In his final address to the packed house, Schein touched on that wistfulness, and reflected many people’s emotions when he read from an email he’d received the day before, from moviegoer Megan Smith:

“We were in a sold-out matinee yesterday, and the audience was full of a sad but celebratory energy. It was amazing to see all of the people who wanted to say thank you and goodbye, and to immerse themselves in the glow of the Ridge for the last time. The same energy radiated from the lineup that was around the block for the next showing. There is nothing like the single-screen neighbourhood movie house they are magical places. Classic spaces soaked in fun, fright, peace, excitement, emotion, love, thrills, stories: everything about the movies that inspires people. The Ridge’s closure is such a tragic loss for the community, but the farewell film festival has been a wonderful tribute to this very special place.”

In the poignant moments that followed, the appreciative crowd broke into a spontaneous rendition of Auld Lang Syne before enthusiastically applauding Schein and the Ridge itself.

Midnight in Paris followed. In 1978, Schein had reopened the Ridge with Casablanca, and he had hoped to bookend his time there by closing with the Humphrey Bogart classic, but he was unable to secure a 35-mm print of that film. The same lack of availability meant he couldn’t go with his second choice, Cinema Paradiso, either.

Prints of any kind are increasingly difficult to come by, with the major Hollywood studios aiming to phase out the medium the end of this year. (20th Century Fox has already totally stopped printing film, sending out its new releases only on small hard drives.) However, the recent Woody Allen film served as a suitable eulogy for the Ridge, as the movie is about the past, and its persistence. “The past is never dead,” Owen Wilson’s character declares in one scene, quoting William Faulkner, “it isn’t even past.”

Midnight in Paris is also about the danger of wallowing in nostalgia at the expense of enjoying the present and the promises of the future. And to be sure, with every photo and every sigh, the attendees on Sunday night indulged in some nostalgia.

The credits rolled and people stood for more photos. Then the credits ended as the last roll of film spun through, and the beam of light from the Ridge’s projector room blinked off.